violentsalvation:Ambivalence: Wait, how can they move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel, but I can't get my 2 ton car to go more than 30 miles on a gallon?

How is that even possible?

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It really just shows how inefficient our cars are, even though 30mpg is pretty darn good.

It's a factor of quite a few things. Rolling friction is significantly lower with steel on steel, freight trains are now diesel-electric which means the engine runs at its most efficient speed continuously, trains don't start/stop nearly as many times as a car, acceleration (and braking) takes place over many miles, etc.

If you're measuring by weight per mile, the trick is to maximize your weight and and throw time out the window. If we all had to wait to accelerate at the same time required by a freight train, traffic would come to a halt in the US. You'd be lucky to hit 10 mph by the next exit or stop light.

A CSX train derailed? No farking way... They easily have the worst railroad record in the states. How they are even allowed to continue to operate is mind boggling. They are the most unsafe railroad...

Trains derailing and blowing up is why we invented oil pipelines in the first place folks. Don't want stuff like this happening? Tell idiots like Bill McKibben to go fark themselves. Stopping pipelines doesn't stop global warming, it just means we get more oil on trains, and more trains going kerblooey near our towns and drinking water.

Ambivalence:Wait, how can they move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel, but I can't get my 2 ton car to go more than 30 miles on a gallon?

How is that even possible?

I had a discussion with an engineer friend about that once, and while we both agreed that it would obviously be under idea conditions - train already moving at full speed, level grade, no curves, etc. - I think there's probably a different truth to it: if you already have a fully-loaded train, the incremental cost of adding another ton of freight is 423 miles per gallon.

cptjeff:Trains derailing and blowing up is why we invented oil pipelines in the first place folks. Don't want stuff like this happening? Tell idiots like Bill McKibben to go fark themselves. Stopping pipelines doesn't stop global warming, it just means we get more oil on trains, and more trains going kerblooey near our towns and drinking water.

I thought it was done since Rockefeller didn't want to pay the Railroad tycoons a train load of money...

Trains derailing and blowing up is why we invented oil pipelines in the first place folks. Don't want stuff like this happening? Tell idiots like Bill McKibben to go fark themselves. Stopping pipelines doesn't stop global warming, it just means we get more oil on trains, and more trains going kerblooey near our towns and drinking water.

If that pipeline is built, gasoline prices will go through the roof.

The purpose of Keystone is not to distribute oil to the US, it's to get it to the gulf so it can be shipped out.

iheartscotch:Except, of course, the actual incident of train derailment is significantly lower that either plane or car incidents. Thousands of trains run all over the US everyday without incident.

It's interesting, really. "Things we freak out about" is a sort of bell curve. The more it happens, the more we freak out about it...until it reaches a certain point, at which it happens so often we begin to think of it as normal and stop caring. You mentioned car accidents vs train accidents. You see it with electric car fires vs normal car fires. You see it with normal gun deaths vs mass shooting deaths. Shark attacks vs. pretty much anything. Etc.

Emposter:iheartscotch: Except, of course, the actual incident of train derailment is significantly lower that either plane or car incidents. Thousands of trains run all over the US everyday without incident.

It's interesting, really. "Things we freak out about" is a sort of bell curve. The more it happens, the more we freak out about it...until it reaches a certain point, at which it happens so often we begin to think of it as normal and stop caring. You mentioned car accidents vs train accidents. You see it with electric car fires vs normal car fires. You see it with normal gun deaths vs mass shooting deaths. Shark attacks vs. pretty much anything. Etc.

Just wait until there are self driving cars. It won't matter if they have two orders of magnitude less accidents, you can be each one will be all over the national news complete with crying relatives and a gang of reporters hanging out near that company's headquarters "looking for answers".

If the Keystone pipeline is implemented with all the reasonable technology we have, it will be much safer than shipping by rail or truck.

I'm just wondering why subby left "Ta-Da" off of the headlie.

Too sleepy to look up numbers but are trains really that unsafe? Trucks I agree with, obviously. Those things are killing people around here so often it isn't shocking anymore (eastern ky). But I've loved next to trains my entire life and I've never known one to derail nearby. I don't think I've seen so much as a dog get hit by one either.

styckx:A CSX train derailed? No farking way... They easily have the worst railroad record in the states. How they are even allowed to continue to operate is mind boggling. They are the most unsafe railroad...

Trains derailing and blowing up is why we invented oil pipelines in the first place folks. Don't want stuff like this happening? Tell idiots like Bill McKibben to go fark themselves. Stopping pipelines doesn't stop global warming, it just means we get more oil on trains, and more trains going kerblooey near our towns and drinking water.

If that pipeline is built, gasoline prices will go through the roof.

The purpose of Keystone is not to distribute oil to the US, it's to get it to the gulf so it can be shipped out.

So no, we don't want it built.

Oil is a fungible commodity. It doesn't matter where any individual barrels go.

Besides, what are we going to do with more crude? All our refineries are already running at capacity, and the NIMBY crowd is working 24/7 to block any new construction.

ImpendingCynic:Ambivalence: Wait, how can they move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel, but I can't get my 2 ton car to go more than 30 miles on a gallon?

How is that even possible?

I had a discussion with an engineer friend about that once, and while we both agreed that it would obviously be under idea conditions - train already moving at full speed, level grade, no curves, etc. - I think there's probably a different truth to it: if you already have a fully-loaded train, the incremental cost of adding another ton of freight is 423 miles per gallon.

So they aren't lying, but they aren't really being honest either.

If you'll recall, that commercial used to state that they run "nearly 500 miles" on a gallon of fuel. Then it got reduced to 423. It looks like someone told them to show their math, and they couldn't.

On the other hand, I have a feeling that the figure cited probably is the average consumption increment for that last railcar before the train is considered "fully-loaded". The math isn't likely to have worked out in their favor otherwise, they were obviously stretching, with such a precise figure, to get the highest value possible, and if they were stretching that hard after being caught, you can bet that whoever did it checked the math closely. Adding a car to a train already considered to be "fully-loaded", while preferable, would have made it look like they were over-loading the trains to get their figures, and would have caused a whole 'nother legal fight.

But yes, that claim gets your attention. I called bullshiat and looked it up. I thought about calculating it myself, but most of the required data would have to come from CSX, so why not use their helpful, convenient propaga- er, information page?

I've always been baffled by those. I've heard them on the radio too. NS runs their own too, being the other class 1 railroad in the East. Why is a railroad advertising to the general public? What solutions do they have for the average person? You know I need to buy some drywall soon. I could borrow a truck, or you know what there's a railroad siding for the old prep plant just down the road, maybe I could get a train to deliver!

Unobtanium:styckx: A CSX train derailed? No farking way... They easily have the worst railroad record in the states. How they are even allowed to continue to operate is mind boggling. They are the most unsafe railroad...

adm_crunch:DarkVader: cptjeff: BalugaJoe: Much safer than the Keystone pipeline.

We're done here.

Trains derailing and blowing up is why we invented oil pipelines in the first place folks. Don't want stuff like this happening? Tell idiots like Bill McKibben to go fark themselves. Stopping pipelines doesn't stop global warming, it just means we get more oil on trains, and more trains going kerblooey near our towns and drinking water.

If that pipeline is built, gasoline prices will go through the roof.

The purpose of Keystone is not to distribute oil to the US, it's to get it to the gulf so it can be shipped out.

So no, we don't want it built.

Oil is a fungible commodity. It doesn't matter where any individual barrels go.

Besides, what are we going to do with more crude? All our refineries are already running at capacity, and the NIMBY crowd is working 24/7 to block any new construction.

nekom:Parthenogenetic:That "423 miles per gallon" line is in TV commercials too.

I've always been baffled by those. I've heard them on the radio too. NS runs their own too, being the other class 1 railroad in the East. Why is a railroad advertising to the general public? What solutions do they have for the average person? You know I need to buy some drywall soon. I could borrow a truck, or you know what there's a railroad siding for the old prep plant just down the road, maybe I could get a train to deliver!

In the case of NPR, I think the company is trying to accrue "mindshare" and promote a sense of goodwill. "Hey, I always thought railroads were big, dirty relics of the robber baron era. But that CSX sounds like a modern, green company. Good for them! And, they're supporting NPR, so how evil could they be?"

Sort of like those spots featuring "Archer Daniels Midland. ADM: Supermarket to the world." It's not like an individual is going to call them up to order a truckload of soybeans.

And here we are, discussing CSX and its WTF-inducing claim of hyperefficiency, so I guess their Jedi mind trick has worked.

nekom:Why is a railroad advertising to the general public? What solutions do they have for the average person?

They are justifying their existence to the general public. It is a kind and gentle way to say STFU trains are important and train horns are required by law. The 90s-00s building boom put lots of homes close to the tracks and idiots who see the tracks when home shopping don't understand that trains a farking loud, plus rail traffic is way up so there are even more trains per day than 10 years ago,

As for the efficiency thing, I refuse to do math, but I can see the logic behind the following general idea:

Take a typical train that moves X tons of freight over Y miles.. Now, take trucks and get enough of them to move that same amount of freight the same distance. The train is going to burn less fuel (CSX is claiming about a third) to do the same thing.

Now of course, a train isn't going to pull onto a siding to unload a car's worth of flour at Wegman's or the corner store, which is why trucks are still necessary. Trucks, I think, are great for last mile and for express shipments. But I'm a fan of using more trains for everything else and taking truck traffic off of the highways. They're hard on the infrastructure, dangerous to passenger vehicles, and I would imagine are less efficient.

Maybe I'm a bit biased because I've watched so much rail die in my region and have seen the economical impact that resulted (in part) from that death. Oh well.

This was Bakken crude. In other words, light and volatile. I'm surprised and thankful it wasn't worse. Bakken crude needs to be treated more like gasoline for transport purposes. Stronger and better engineered tank cars are on the way and will likely be required real soon.

Oil by rail isn't going away. It provides flexibility that a pipeline can't. Look at where much of this oil is going, to the east coast. What are the chances of building a pipeline from North Dakota to New Jersey? Even then a pipeline is strictly point to point. Costs of oil by rail are competitive with pipeline depending on specifics. Alberta tar sands crude is so thick it has to be diluted to flow through a pipeline. What do you do with the diluent at the other end? Rail requires less diluent (depending on tank car design) and whatever is left can easily be shipped back in the same cars and recycled.

Rail is by far the most efficient means (on land) of hauling lots of stuff long distances. Like LA to Chicago. The efficiency drops off when the quantities get smaller or distances get shorter. Go stand next to the BNSF tanscon in Arizona or New Mexico sometime and watch the parade of trains. Upwards of 100 trains a day go by, most carrying hundreds of containers and truck trailers each. Now imagine all those trucks on parallel I-40.

Ambivalence:Wait, how can they move one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel, but I can't get my 2 ton car to go more than 30 miles on a gallon?

How is that even possible?

1) No stop signs or traffic lights.

2) Vastly underpowered engines. Imagine if you had a model-airplane engine in your car. It would take 20 minutes to get up to 55 MPH, but you'd get 500 MPG. Of course, you'd need to eliminate stop signs and traffic lights for yourself, foisting all the fuel waste onto your neighbors...